He slowed down a bit on I-91, after he cut off a semi driver who blasted his horn. He realized he wasn’t thinking straight in his desperation to get home. He was upset, but he knew that Carolyn must be devastated. He couldn’t imagine how she had taken the news, and he feared that his wife would never recover. Then his thoughts went to Christopher. Oh, my God, that poor little boy was left in his house alone. Who knows what he witnessed, before his father abandoned him to the horror he created?

For the first time, the enormity of the situation enveloped Mitch, and he banged the steering wheel and screamed, “Danny, you rotten coward, how could you? What would make you do something so horrible? Why? Why? Why? Oh Lord, why do you allow such misery to happen in our world?” He felt crazed and carried on like that for the rest of the drive home, but composed himself as he pulled into his driveway. He would be no help to anyone if he was out of control.

When Mitch entered the house, he hugged Rosemary, and she told him Carolyn was upstairs lying down.

“How is she?”

Rosemary shook her head and said, “Not good.” She was very worried about her daughter.

When Mitch walked into the room, Carolyn gazed at him with a look of utter disbelief. They simply held each other and cried.

Finally, Mitch got up and said he would call—whom? Not Tony, given the circumstances. Rachel’s mother and father were gone. He would call Maryann—she would know about the arrangements. Maryann had now moved out, but had been legally adopted by Rachel and Danny; so, in essence, they were her parents and Evan and Christopher were her brothers.

“Do you know if we have her number, honey?”

Carolyn shook her head and said, “It’s in the address book downstairs.”

Mitch reached Maryann and learned that the funeral service would be in two days, and that there would not be a wake. “I don’t think anyone could bear it, Mitch.”

She suggested that he contact Tom Schroeder, the man who worked for Tony and was friends with Danny, and who first discovered the murders. She believed he knew someone in the police department who was planning to sit down with her and a few other close friends at Tom’s house tomorrow afternoon.

“I know Rachel would want you guys to be there,” she said. “I’ll see you then.” Maryann gave him the number, but her monotone made it obvious she was as stunned as everyone else.